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FUN & GAMES WITH LOGLINES

9/7/2014

3 Commentaires

 
Photo
Dorothy and her partners in crime - Scarecrow, Lion and Tin-Man - in "The Wizard Of Oz"

For those of you not on Twitter, I wouldn’t want you to miss out on all the fun…

Every now and then, there’s a hashtag game that really captures the Twitter-sphere’s imagination and creates a few laughs into the bargain. This weekend in London #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly was the number one trending topic over two days. It was inspired by a logline seen in a TV schedule listing: 

"Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again."

That's one way of looking at things! Behind the humour is a skill all new screenwriters struggle to hone: crafting the dreaded logline. In short, the ability to encapsulate an entire movie in a sentence or two. Of course, for any given film there is no one right answer. The "official" logline you read in a film's marketing material has been chosen by the producers to anchor your expectations as to the sort of emotional ride you're going to go on when you watch the film. 

I was interested to see the same films come up over and over again – Star Wars, Harry Potter, Titanic - evidence (perhaps) of how much impact certain films have had on the collective psyche.

See if you can guess the films that inspired the “bad” loglines below. Don’t be surprised to see the same film cropping up more than once. The answers are at the end – no cheating now.


MY ATTEMPTS (KT Parker ‪@lunaperla)

a) A woman goes to the dark side of the moon and back, having a secret George Clooney fantasy along the way.

b) Height-impaired creatures on a see-food diet trek across New Zealand in real time.

c) Enterprising producer/director makes aging actor's out-takes into action film with *action-cut-repeat* theme. ‪

d) Girl has the best dessert ever while on a road trip across the US with cynical boy.
  (I still want whatever she had...)

e) The guy who plays Eames steals the show. Also, the music is awesome.

‪f) Annoying Italian teaches his son to always look on the bright side of life in a Nazi concentration camp.

g) In a world where there are 999 males of various near-humanoid species to every female there are lots of battles.


h) Ms Bullock is Maj. Tom floating in a most peculiar way until oxygen kicks in & she becomes the Woman Who Fell 2 Earth

Now that you’ve got the general idea how the game works, here are tweets by other writers that had me sniggering.

Photo
Janet Leigh in the legendary shower scene from Hitchcock's "Psycho"


MY FAVOURITES

Alex Rubalcava ‪@AlexRubalcava
1. In a world before Google Maps, Harold and Kumar struggle to find a burger joint. 

British Reactions ‏‪@BritishReaction 
2. Boat load of people take Ice Bucket Challenge. Ends badly. Girl floats away. 

Nev Pierce ‏‪@nevpierce  
3. Nun steals sweet spinster's fiancé, makes children perform at Nazi X Factor. 

Alex Rubalcava ‪@AlexRubalcava
4. It takes a terrorist threat to make a bus get anywhere on time in Los Angeles.

Justine Musk ‏‪@justinemusk 
5. A budding romance between two attractive young people is rudely interrupted by a boating incident.

Kevin Lehane ‏‪@KevinLehane  
6. Two naked men travel back in time to hunt a woman. One to impregnate her, the other to stop her having sex.

Gerard Wyer ‏‪@gerardwyer 
7. There's a plane, and it has snakes on it, and everyone involved in the film should be ashamed of themselves.

Ian F. Hood ‏@IanFHood

8. Tom Hanks gets stranded on a deserted island and establishes a long-term relationship with one of his balls.

fuzzy lumpkin. ‏‪@theotisprice 
9. Billionaire orphan dresses up like flying mammal to beat up an asthmatic bodybuilder.

Josh ‏‪@jampadu 
10. Epic tale about how Clooney would rather float away in space and die than spend 10 minutes with a woman his own age.

Mary Evans ‏‪@MaryAliceEvans  
11. Wrongly-convicted inmate exposes rising damp in prison walls. 

Whatsit ‏‪@mattwhatsit 
12. Digs his way out of prison with a teaspoon so he can paint a boat. 

Darren Barker ‪@daz_barker
13. Man makes dinosaurs from a rock. Dinosaurs eat people at badly run theme park.

Saladin Ahmed ‪@saladinahmed
14. A white boy in England is told he is special. Then he goes to a private school. 

Mark Souza ‪@souzawrites 
15. Bruce Willis has to kill a dozen Germans to get his shoes back. 

Alexia Tsotsis ‏‪@alexia 
16. Guy drops out of college, builds a website.

Dave the Black Guy ‪@Realdaveblack
17. First they dropped a house on her sister and jacked her shoes. Then they do a home invasion and melt her.

Fun Mugford ‏‪@FunMugford 
18. Some chick has a really terrible shower and doesn't even get the chance to complain about it on Trip advisor.

Justin Boot ‏‪@Polymathically 
19. Anthony Hopkins discusses criminal pathology while making dinner plans.

And finally:

Simon Underwood ‏‪@SiFoulaReel 
I think ‪#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly has run its course - I'm now seeing people trying to explain ‪#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly and just doing it badly.

Ah well. All good things must come to an end.


ANSWERS

a)    Gravity
b)    Lord Of The Rings (the entire trilogy)
c)    Edge of Tomorrow
d)    When Harry Met Sally
e)    Inception
f)     La Vita È Bella (aka Life Is Beautiful)
g)    The Hobbit (the entire trilogy)

h)    Gravity (yes, again)

1.    [Seriously, I don’t know, but I’d definitely go to see it based on this logline!]
2.    Titanic
3.    Sound of Music
4.    Speed
5.    Titanic
6.    Terminator
7.    Snakes On A Plane
8.    Castaway
9.    The Dark Knight Rises
10. Gravity
11. The Shawshank Redemption
12. The Shawshank Redemption (no, this is not a typo)
13. Jurassic Park
14. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone
15. Die Hard
16. The Social Network
17. The Wizard Of Oz
18. Psycho
19. Silence Of The Lambs

3 Commentaires

    Author

    One of my uncles calls me, “Kim the Intrepid”. Adventures include an African revolution, questioning by the KGB/FSB and being guest of honour at a Turkmen wedding.  What else would I want to do but write? 

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